Hazel ran to him, but he got up on his own.
“What are you doing up here?” fire master Aragorn said. “Get to the back.”
They spent the night huddled deep in the Foundation. Master Aragorn sent a runner to the parents informing them it was safer if the children stayed where they were. The wind howled like an insistent beast and clawed at the mountain. Rock cracked and creaked, boulders fell, but the mountain stood against the onslaught. The Womb filled with water, but it rose nowhere near the Perpetual Flame or the Foundation entrance.
Randy watched Hazel in the darkness, her face split down the center; one side in darkness and the other lit by faint torchlight. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing heavy.
When the storm receded, it left in its wake a horror Randy hadn’t imagined in his worst nightmares. Most of the trees were flattened or ripped from the island, and topsoil and sand were rearranged, burying fields and huts. A section of Citi was destroyed, its pieces thrown like children’s toys across the shallows.
Randy wept when he saw the beach. Most of the palm trees were uprooted, and many had been sucked out to sea by the cyclone. First thing they did was build up the Perpetual Flame, which had been kept smoldering by a brave group of fire guards that refused to let the light of the community go out.
Randy took Hazel’s hand, but when he started to speak, she told him to shut it. The sea lapped on the beach, waves tumbled in, the air sweet. They walked in silence. This new Respite would be theirs.
Chapter Twelve
Year 2068, Southern Texas
Tye and company followed the sign of the turtle through Mexico and along the eastern shore of the gulf where the conditions were desolate, harsh and arid. Marked on stones, painted on buildings, and etched into trees and landmarks, the mark of the turtle led them on with a promise to show the way back to the gone world. With the reborn Hansa’s help, they avoided Uruks and found fresh water. Without her unique skills the party would have died of dehydration within a week. Just like she saw inside the minds of people, she could see the world through the eyes of animals and virals. So with Hansa’s help, Tye hunted small game and caught fish in the gulf, but survival took time and slowed their progress. Robin’s wounds healed, and it had been over a year since they’d abandoned the Jolly Roger.
Tye knew they’d entered the United States when they crossed the Rio Grande. Broken slabs of concrete with rusted rebar sticking from them dotted the riverbed, the constant rush of water rounding their corners and slowly wearing the man-made rocks back to sand. The collapsed bridge had been replaced with a rope version anchored between broken support buttresses, and an old road, overgrown but passable, led to the new bridge’s entrance. Everything looked used, and that worried Tye because it left the fellowship exposed in the open, and there was little cover on the brown plain beyond.
There was a brief debate about using the bridge as Milly and Peter believed it might be a trap, but when Tye found the sign of the turtle carved into the foot planking everyone crossed without hesitation. Peter took point, and Milly covered their backs. Hansa, Vera, Jerome and Robin trailed after in a daze. They hadn’t been attacked in a long time, and staying alert presented a challenge.
“That used to be the town of Brownsville to the west,” Hansa said.
“Sure lives up to its name,” Tye said. The kid said stuff like that all the time, but if he asked her where they were, the child would say she didn’t know. The day before he’d gotten this nugget out of her; “I was born up this way.”
Everyone in the party stayed away from Hansa, except Tye, but even he found being around her an effort. The girl sifted his thoughts, asking questions and making assumptions. The party tolerated her because she promised to bring them to a place where they could learn about the turtle, but so far, the only specifics she’d provided was they were heading toward a place called Stadium in the north. They were going on faith, and Tye didn’t hold well with that, but Austin was up north so nobody questioned their destination.
Tye worried for Hansa. Her arrival had been met with great joy and hope, but this faded to stoic skepticism in the last year of hard hiking. Tye never saw the girl eat, go to the bathroom, or do anything normally associated with being human. When Robin joked with the child that she acted like a robot, Hansa smiled her knowing smile. Tye always felt the pains of hunger and thirst, yet the child never complained or slowed.
She wasn’t a robot, though. Tye’d seen her bleed, heard the ragged breaths she took when she slept, and the way she screamed her mother’s name in the deep of the night when all the illusions of day got stripped away. She was a child in many ways, and not a child in many others.
“Are there others like you?” Vera had asked.
“No.”
No explanation. No polite conversation. Tye got more out of her the night they’d meet, when she said everyone like her was different.
They stayed west, and on the twelfth day in Texas, they came across overgrown railroad tracks that headed north in a gradual arc that turned east. The old steel rails were rusted brown, but intact. Green trees and burnt out brown grass stretched over gentle hills and around old structures. To the west a clump of old buildings was framed against the horizon, and dust rose as things unseen moved about. They filled their skins in a crystal clear stream and ate some salted venison. Small deer were plentiful within the sagebrush where they feasted on branches and leaves.
“We should stay out of the town,” Tye said.
“Probably a good idea,” Hansa said.
The first railroad station they came across was mostly intact. White paint lay in piles around the building, the windows open holes, but the metal roof looked in good shape, and the brick walls were unbroken, but badly decayed. The rusted hulk of a soda machine stood on one side of the main door, the red shards of its plastic front still clinging to the edges of its frame like bloody teeth. An engraved train route map was mounted on the other side, and Tye ran his hand over it. The paint had worn away and the wood plaque and the holes where stations were marked was all that remained.
“Wish I had a map,” Tye said.
“Would it help?” Hansa asked.
“It might.”
They walked on, following the train tracks into a wasted land. Brown grass and dried weeds poked through every gap, and in places the railroad ties were cracked and coming apart.
“Look here,” Milly said.
Carved into the wood support tie was the sign of the turtle, its neck extending north. Tye counted a turtle every five hundred ties, and this put the party at ease.
They came upon a rusted metal sign that had been sandblasted from the harsh weather, but was still partly readable. It showed Houston as the end of the line. A string of bullet holes ran across the sign and that made Tye remember the Glock. It stuck from the back of Milly’s jeans. It hadn’t been fired since landfall.
“What if someone uses the turtle symbol to lead us into a trap?” Jerome asked.
“I’ve paid close attention to each symbol we’ve found. There’s a consistency to them I can’t explain, like how two people can draw basic stick figures and they look completely different. The perspective of the turtles is always the same, the flourishes exact. If somebody is copying the symbol, they’re doing a good job of it,” Tye said.
A row of brick houses stood in the distance to the west and Tye decided to do some scavenging. Most of the old structures they’d found along the way were picked clean, but out here in the middle of nowhere they might find something. So they left the tracks behind and worked their way through the knee-high brown sagebrush that covered the plain. Snakes, deer, lizards, and armadillos fled before them, and they were about half way to the houses when Tye bumped into Milly, who had halted. She gazed into the sky, slack jawed.
Tye followed her line of sight and saw a white line inching across the sky way up high. It cut through the clouds, and as it advanced, its tail grew wider. He couldn’t see what was making the line, but h
e knew.
“I’ll be damned,” Tye said.
“What is it?” Milly asked.
The others stared upward, shading their eyes and straining to see into the bright sunlight. “It’s a plane. A jet by the looks of it,” Tye said.
“Yes,” Hansa said.
“How can that be?” Peter said. “Even if someone had a functioning plane, how would they get fuel?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you say all the fuel would be bad?” Milly said. Despite all the signs she’d seen of the gone world she still appeared unconvinced, but Tye understood. Seeing a rusted lump of metal called a car and seeing a car drive are two very different things. Nothing from the gone world worked. It was like a bag of magician’s tricks that were missing pieces, their magic useless.
“Aviation fuel is different, and they had all kinds of additives and preservation methods. That plane is most likely military reconnaissance, and they had plenty of ways to keep things going. I have no doubts that some military bases have power, and other old world luxuries,” Tye said.
“Yeah, there has to be places that self-quarantined. I’m sure the military did in several areas,” Peter said. “My father didn’t understand why no military showed up on Respite.” Tye knew Peter’s father, Ben Hasten, claimed to have seen a submarine on a paddle he did to the closest atoll, but he had no proof and people didn’t seem to care. “My dad said there are probably several islands like ours with people on them. Why haven’t we heard any of these people on the ear?”
“I think that’s where we’re going. To a military place,” Milly said. “A place like that is who sent the message.”
“No,” Hansa said. “The greenies don’t mix with survivors.”
“Greenies?” Vera said.
“They wear green uniforms and live behind walls. Everyone not within their walls is the enemy.”
“That’s dour,” Tye said.
“You don’t understand. In the beginning they were attacked by all survivors. People needed supplies, food, and everyone knew the greenies had some. Folks felt like it was theirs as much as the greenies because they paid for it,” Hansa said.
“What do you know about it?” Milly said.
“That’s what my dad used to say,” Hansa said.
“What happened to dear old dad?” Jerome said.
Hansa said nothing.
“You know we can’t read minds, right?” Robin said.
“My father was a greenie,” Peter said.
“My mom, also,” Milly said.
“I am a greenie,” Tye said, though he hadn’t thought of himself as one for a very long time.
No one spoke.
They reached the village and Tye picked a side street to explore. Most of the houses were roofless, windows and doors gone, but there were still signs of the old world within.
“Is that supposed to be some kind of art?” Milly asked. A black glossy rectangle hung from a wall.
Tye laughed. “Nope. That’s a TV.”
They found plates, cups, and many other things that would have great value on Respite, but they couldn’t carry. Tye found a gold necklace, and to keep the girl in the fold, gave it to Hansa as a gift. The child beamed and constantly fingered the chain.
“Back to the tracks,” Tye said. They left the town empty handed. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but exploring inside the old buildings and seeing the fragments of the gone world helped him piece together pictures of the past and remind him he was sane.
They walked through the sagebrush and an arrow stuck in the ground before Tye. “Down!” he yelled.
Tye dropped and lay in the dried grass. Flies, ants, and mosquitoes attacked him. He was fresh meat, and insects had done well in man’s absence. Tye slowed his breathing, and wondered how cockroaches and rats, animals that lived off the waste of humans, had made out after The Day. Without millions of people creating garbage, what would they eat? The dried grass tickled his nose, and he sneezed. Everything went still. The fellowship waited for orders as he pondered the fate of cockroaches.
Tye stuck his head above the sagebrush. Virals came at them from every direction, stalking through the brush. They appeared different from the orc-men he’d seen in Mexico. These retained many of their human facial features, weren’t as dilapidated, and appeared smarter than their kin to the south as evidenced by their stealthy approach.
The virals charged as one, their footfalls like thunder, their battle cries a splinter in the brain. Milly stood and shot the viral closest to her, but the others kept coming, displaying no fear of guns. The lead attackers were twenty yards away. Milly opened up, squeezing the trigger and screaming with the fury of a year’s frustration and struggle. The shots rang out over the piercing cries, and most of the bullets hit home. Uruks fell, but there were too many.
A great horn sounded, like the coming of the cavalry when all’s been lost. The orc-men skidded to a halt. Milly kept firing and emptied the Glock in her rage. She pulled the trigger long after the magazine was spent, the tap of the hammer striking the empty chamber echoing in the stillness.
Shots came from everywhere, and Tye twirled his bolas and let it fly, striking home and taking out a viral. The beasts bolted in every direction like roaches under a klieg light.
Tye breathed out and relaxed. The newcomers weren’t shooting at them.
The blow caught him by surprise. He staggered, reacting too late, and fell. A giant man with a long brown beard stood over him.
Then Tye saw his mother looking down at him. “Sleep now, baby, it’ll be all right.”
Tye Rantic out.
Chapter Thirteen
Year 2068, Southern Texas
When Tye went down, and then Vera, a bloodlust flowed through Milly like she’d never experienced. She stuck the Glock in her pants, pulled free her club, and pivoted on the balls of her feet, scanning the sagebrush. Next to her a bull snake sat coiled around a branch, watching her with dead black eyes.
What would she do without Tye?
“Don’t shoot. We don’t want to hurt you.” The voice was deep, male, and filled with truth. Milly believed it. She squinted, pain running down her spine. Why did she believe?
Silence.
“Tell that to my friends,” Jerome yelled.
“This one’s not dead.” A female voice, but harsh and smoke worn.
Milly searched for the source of the voice, trying to determine who the woman was referring to, but saw no signs. She moved through the sagebrush, keeping low, searching.
“This one is.” The voice was close to her. Beyond the underbrush, a teenage boy stood over Vera’s bloody body. Milly ran toward her fallen friend.
“Halt!”
“It’s OK.” A female voice, fresh and understanding.
Vera’s neck was torn open, and her abdomen spilled blood and intestines. Her eyes were open, and she stared at the sky, already looking into the next world.
Peter pulled up behind her and almost fell. When he saw Vera, he said, “One little Soldier Girl left all alone; she went out and hanged herself and then there were none. God speed old friend.”
Then hands were on her, and they took Milly’s club and Peter’s axe and herded them forward like cattle. They reached a clearing where Robin and Jerome huddled together. Two men dressed in patchwork clothing had guns pointed at them. Tye lay on the ground, unconscious. Hansa was gone.
A big man with a long brown beard approached Milly, and took the Glock, examining it as he smiled. “Nice gun. You can call me Grady. Where’s the little girl?” he said.
Milly searched around her again, panic filling her. Tye hadn’t moved. More men and women joined them in the clearing, and before long, twenty people were staring at Milly. “I don’t know,” she said. She owed these people. They’d saved her life. Then there were the guns. “Can I tend to my friend?”
“You should focus on me now, sweetie,” Grady said.
Milly struggled to break free, but the dark bearded men held her tigh
t.
“Live one,” Grady said. “We saved your asses. You owe me a few answers. Yeah?”
Milly nodded.
“Where you coming from?”
“Respite,” Milly said.
“And where might that be?” Agitation growing in Grady’s voice.
“It’s an island,” Milly said.
“How did you get here?”
“On a boat. Then we walked,” Milly said. “My turn now. Who are you people?”
“Go tend to your friend,” Grady said.
Milly and Peter were allowed to go to Tye. “Water. Water, please,” Milly said.
A young woman with short blonde hair and keen blue eyes screwed the lid off a mason jar and handed it to her. Tye looked fine, if a little piqued. Dark rings hung beneath his eyes, and a thin trickle of blood ran from a lump on his head. She poured water onto his face and after a few seconds he sputtered awake.
Milly wiped the blood away with a rag, dabbed his forehead, and said, “You know I’m your boss, right?”
Tye laughed. “I’m all here. No worries.” He sat up.
The blonde woman turned to the man next to her and said, “Get him some food and a little beer. Tina, you have any aspirin powder on you?”
Grady joined them. “So you want to tell us now where the girl is?”
Milly looked up at him. “I don’t understand. She was with us when we were attacked. You saw more than I did after that.”
“Was her name Hansa?” the blonde haired woman said.
Milly and Tye exchanged glances.
“We know of her. She’s an exile,” Grady said. “She couldn’t live in the compound, so she lives in the wilderness alone, catching people in her web and helping those she deems worthy find us. Kat here knew her well.” Grady pointed at the woman with the short blonde hair. “They were friends when they were little kids.” A crooked smile split his face.
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